The Last Defenders of a Dead Faith

How Anti-Leftist Reactionaries Became Capitalism’s Gravediggers

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

This is, after all, a philosophy blog. But sometimes the most important philosophical work is documenting how intelligent people convince themselves to commit suicide.

We are witnessing something historically unprecedented: a capitalist class so drunk on its own power that it has become incapable of recognizing its own interests. So ideologically committed to libertarian mythology that it cannot distinguish between democratic reform and revolutionary threat. So contemptuous of the very institutions that created their wealth that they are systematically destroying the conditions that make capitalism possible.

The anti-leftist reactionaries who fancy themselves capitalism’s defenders have become its gravediggers. And they’re too stupid to notice they’re holding shovels.

The Ezra Klein Test

Here is a simple diagnostic for measuring the intellectual bankruptcy of contemporary conservative thought: How do you respond to Ezra Klein?

Klein represents something that should be immediately recognizable to anyone with a functional understanding of political economy: the moderate reformist attempting to preserve capitalism through democratic constraint. He argues that markets can serve human flourishing if properly regulated. That wealth concentration threatens social stability and must be managed through policy. That capitalism’s legitimacy depends on its ability to deliver broadly shared prosperity.

This is not radical socialism. This is not even European-style social democracy. This is center-left liberalism making the case for preserving private property within democratic institutions. Klein is literally arguing for capitalism—just capitalism that operates within legal and moral boundaries rather than as an extractive free-for-all.

Yet the self-appointed defenders of free enterprise treat Klein as an ideological enemy. They see his calls for antitrust enforcement as attacks on economic freedom. They interpret his proposals for progressive taxation as creeping communism. They respond to his warnings about oligarchy with lectures about the virtues of individual achievement.

This response reveals everything you need to know about how thoroughly anti-leftist reactionaries have lost the plot. When you cannot distinguish between someone trying to save your system and someone trying to destroy it, you have forfeited any claim to strategic thinking.